Database Develop

Any app to auto kill on exit?

Seems the N1 has memory management issues. Instead of constantly closing apps to free up memory or have some app try to manage things, be nice to just kill the thing on exit. Any app that will auto-kill when an app exits?
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

It would be nice to have, say, long press back key to kill the current app.

Big_O said:
Seems the N1 has memory management issues. Instead of constantly closing apps to free up memory or have some app try to manage things, be nice to just kill the thing on exit. Any app that will auto-kill when an app exits?
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
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You obviously didn't search for this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=678205
You DON'T need to intervene with N1 memory management, since you don't know how it works. You assume wrong. And most bad gossips are created by people wrongly assuming something, thinking they know something while they actually don't.
My N1 runs equally well with 40MB and 250MB free. The only reason I use a task killer is to kill apps that I want to return to their "initial" state for some reason, or to kill apps that I suspect of wrongdoing.

Exactly, the nexus has no memory management issues. It is just your misunderstanding of how Android works. Leave your tasks alone.

If you have one or two particular apps that are bad citizens and should be shutting down in the background but don't... you can use "1Kill" from the market to create a home screen shortcut that kills that specific app when you press it.
Fring used to be a bad citizen - it would lock my wifi on even when I didn't want to be using it, and had no exit feature. So I'd always have to kill it after finishing up with it. Now it does have a proper exit, thankfully.

Jack_R1 said:
My N1 runs equally well with 40MB and 250MB free. The only reason I use a task killer is to kill apps that I want to return to their "initial" state for some reason, or to kill apps that I suspect of wrongdoing.
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Ditto!
1 app running or 50 apps running they all still run the same.

I find it even funnier how iOS4 users in Apple-land are suddenly freaking out that so many applications appear to be open "in the background" and complaining that they have to spend so much time "killing" apps.

Big_O said:
Seems the N1 has memory management issues. Instead of constantly closing apps to free up memory or have some app try to manage things, be nice to just kill the thing on exit. Any app that will auto-kill when an app exits?
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
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I think you have the memory management issues.

Before anyone gets tarred and feathered, that explains why many users on unrooted stock roms ha e frequent touchscreen lockups, hesitation and freezes. Guess theres a reason why the market has so many task killers. Maybe the devs should read this thread also lol. Instead of flaming, positive feedback is appreciated. I did search, but its a bit time consuming sifting through 5000 posts. Maybe you guys o rooted phones have no lockups, but google shows an azzload of people with similar issues.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

1) You've been given some answers in the thread, if you cared to look.
2) App that loses focus goes to background. That's the way OS is built. If you want apps to be killed on losing focus, get iOS 3 to run on your device. Seriously, what kind of answer would you expect, if you want to turn multitasking OS into non-multitasking?
3) The market has task killers because they can be written for multitasking OS, and because they help dealing with bad apps. Not for any other reason.
4) The OS loads some of your most used tasks when it runs, even if you don't know about it. Just loads in the memory, and allocates no CPU time. If you leave your phone unattended, your free memory goes down by itself. Why? Because free memory is wasted memory. You can check the "EMPTY" processes in Astro, for example.
5) The best task killer is careful selection of your apps. You see hangups? Find out the app that's doing it and remove it, or kill it specifically after running if it's necessary.
6) Task killers are a good source of lockups and freezes too, did you know? I guess you didn't read that thread...
All this meant to say: instead of looking for a way to cripple your OS, learn to select your apps, and don't solve issues that you don't have.

cmstlist said:
I find it even funnier how iOS4 users in Apple-land are suddenly freaking out that so many applications appear to be open "in the background" and complaining that they have to spend so much time "killing" apps.
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Yeah, I think Apple needs to tweak their multi-tasking still. I've played with my gf's iPhone a bit this week, and it's a little annoying how now you have to explicitly quit every app. For example, with the Settings app if I go to change a preference quickly then return to home Settings app is still in the running apps list. I think little utilities like that should be able to quit themselves automatically.
I know the app isn't wasting memory or CPU down there, but I just don't see why you would want it cluttering up your app switcher forever.
Oh well, it's progress though. At least now you don't have to quit everything else you're doing to listen to Pandora

well android does the same thing. if you go into the settings menu, then hit home button, the settings is still running in the background. of course andoird will kill it later when it needs to.

why are apps running when i dont open them? memory leak also..

could be a noob question
every once in a while i will go into my advance task killer and see a bunch of apps running that i didnt manually open. i just checked my phone to see sprint nav, mp3 store, droid locator, internet, ringdroid, etc.. it also takes my phone from 71m free to about 35-40m. ill kill the apps, and they will be open again without me touching the phone. am i stupid, or is there actually a problem?

Okay bc those stock apps are coded to run at startup, and open themselfs for ease-of-access, this is normal. If you want to stop that, add them to autokill, and use a startup manager (market) to remove them from the start up screen.
For the mem issues, try disabling the GPS lovation services, that eats up battery life AND mem, same with internet.

If you really want your phone to fly, don't use a task killer.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/

abcdfv said:
If you really want your phone to fly, don't use a task killer.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
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In theory this is true but in reality it couldn't be more misleading. Yes a task killer, especially one that is always running and using up resources itself is probably less than optimal in an Android environment, however they are sometimes necessary because things do not always work as they are supposed to. If you have root it is better to just use AutoKiller as it doesn't just kill programs but helps the OS by allowing you to set the limits for when the OS should start closing things. It also allows you to manually kill anything not working right.
Of course this is just my opinion, but I have tried it both ways on 3 different Android phones and my results were the same on all.

jlem26 said:
however they are sometimes necessary because things do not always work as they are supposed to.
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There's a section at the bottom that goes over this.
It's really more of an explanation that "Having free RAM will make my phone faster" will not make your phone faster.

[Q] Why does many installed apps increase lag?

Can't see why this is the case (but it obviously is) as long as I have lots of free disk space and not many apps running at the same time. Any logic in this?

I've been experiencing the same issue and wondering the same thing...
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S GT-I9000 using Tapatalk Pro

There seems to be several things causing this, but the two key issues are:
The moviNAND (the internal flash drive/"SSD") firmware seems to have an issue with fsync() taking extremely long. E.g., it slows down whenever a file is written/updated on the internal storage.
RFS, the file system used by Samsung is buggy as hell and corrupts data after a while.
There are several topics on these issues in the Android Development forum. There are also several "lag fixes" trying their best to overcome these issues. Go check them out

Einride said:
There seems to be several things causing this, but the two key issues are:
RFS, the file system used by Samsung is buggy as hell and corrupts data after a while.
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We have no idea if that is ACTUALLY true.. Just because fsck picked some things up on 1 phone, doesn't mean it happens everywhere.. Furthermore, it doesn't mean the problems detected affect operations

that has no truth at all about more apps slowing down the phone, my phone is the prove

Before jpk i didn't noticed slowdowns with aprox 100 apps, now i do on jpk =/
Prolly that all pictures/links/info stays in his workmemory?

probably cause some of them run in the system memory or run at startup

KaliKot said:
probably cause some of them run in the system memory or run at startup
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Bingo!
and that is what most people does not realize
they need to Optimize the phone, most people take it for granted
the phone is not a phone, the phone is a mini computer that fits in your hands
just like your big desktop PC it can go crazy if you don't take care of it

AllGamer said:
Bingo!
and that is what most people does not realize
they need to Optimize the phone, most people take it for granted
the phone is not a phone, the phone is a mini computer that fits in your hands
just like your big desktop PC it can go crazy if you don't take care of it
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Can you tell me why with the same apps installed on the Nexus it doesn't lag like the SGS?
Can you stop blaming users when is the phone which doesn't work as expected?

Oletros said:
Can you tell me why with the same apps installed on the Nexus it doesn't lag like the SGS?
Can you stop blaming users when is the phone which doesn't work as expected?
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utter ****e -i have well over 100 apps on my sgs and experience NO lag whatsoever!

bonehooch said:
utter ****e -i have well over 100 apps on my sgs and experience NO lag whatsoever!
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Utter ****e? Why?

it was mentioned many many times
just install autorunkiller and a good task manager then all the problems will be gone
stock ROM is very fast when you maintain the phone

AllGamer said:
it was mentioned many many times
just install autorunkiller and a good task manager then all the problems will be gone
stock ROM is very fast when you maintain the phone
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Click to collapse
With autokiller the phone is still laggy.
And please, stop thinking I'm stupid or I don't know a **** about smartphones, ROM's changing, firmware or knowing how a phone must run.

AFAIK this topic and its responses are for the OP

I have about 190 Apps installed and do not experience any diferene in overall speed of the phone. But only because i know that a lot of the programms start on boot and stay in background.
I have more than 15 apps turned off with the full version of autorun killer to prevent the auto restart of the apps. Otherwise the phone would definetaly slow down.
It´s really incredible what apps start on the boot!

TMReuffurth said:
I have about 190 Apps installed and do not experience any diferene in overall speed of the phone. But only because i know that a lot of the programms start on boot and stay in background.
I have more than 15 apps turned off with the full version of autorun killer to prevent the auto restart of the apps. Otherwise the phone would definetaly slow down.
It´s really incredible what apps start on the boot!
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Click to collapse
Do you need to be rooted ti use all of the functions in autorun killer? I am not rooted.
Can you compile a breif list of the "biggest culprits" to stop with this utility to gain back the most speed and efficiency? I am a bit nervous that I will stop the wrong items and somehow damage my phone...

Autokiller and task killers are not the solution here! Quick lesson on Android, and why having even A SINGLE BAD APP is going to ruin your whole phone!
Android has something called an 'Intent'. In order to start an app, an intent is made by your launcher or a button you press, and the Android system reads this intent and works out what app it needs to start up.
There is a second type of intent though, called a 'Broadcast Intent'. This is an intent that is sent out to anything that is registered to listen to it. This means that an app can register to listen to all sorts of events, such as battery level changed, application start, or a tons of other things. Even if the application is closed, if it is registered as a listener, Android will start it right back up so it can deal with the intent. If the intent comes every 5 seconds, Android will run this app every 5 seconds even if you have a taskkiller killing the app.
The only real solution is to not install apps which are bad! Finding bad apps is a real mission, too. Hopefully in the future, utilities will be available to let us track down these terrible apps, but till then, you'll have to work it out yourself.

yiannisthegreek said:
Do you need to be rooted ti use all of the functions in autorun killer? I am not rooted.
Can you compile a breif list of the "biggest culprits" to stop with this utility to gain back the most speed and efficiency? I am a bit nervous that I will stop the wrong items and somehow damage my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No need for Root to use all features of Autorun Killer. I would disable only the apps you know and which you do not need at startup and running in background, such as (in my case) Paypal, App Center from Androidpit, Daily Briefing, Photoshop Express, Word Press, TweetCaster, etc.
Every of these apps works normal, even when deactivatet on startup.
So unless you do not disable system apps (must be previously set enabled in settings) you are safe.

RyanZA said:
(...)There is a second type of intent though, called a 'Broadcast Intent'. This is an intent that is sent out to anything that is registered to listen to it.(...)
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Is there any possibility/app to show what is registered for which app?

watching the apps
Samga said:
Is there any possibility/app to show what is registered for which app?
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There is an app called Autostarts at 0.95$.
It shows what is launched au startup, when you enable/disable wifi etc.
It think it gives insight on how apps seems launching out of nowhere.
I also reccomend Watchdog Task Manager Lite, the free version.
It does not kill anything, but notifies and logs the bad apps that consumes over a certain CPU percentage.

[Q] Is advanced task killer bad?

im reading that advanced task killer is good and bad, so is it bad to install or does it really work? im running CM7 Stable.

EverythingNook said:
im reading that advanced task killer is good and bad, so is it bad to install or does it really work? im running CM7 Stable.
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Everything I've read says you don't need it with Android 2.2 and above.

I use it, nice quick and easy way to close things (like emulators that normally won't shut themselves off.)

dsf3g said:
Everything I've read says you don't need it with Android 2.2 and above.
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me too but my friends have 2.3 and they use it.

I use it if videos start to stutter (ie youtube etc). It seems to help.

It's bad if you set it to Auto-Kill. The reason is because from 2.2 onward, if you kill (not Force Close) and app, it'll just restart itself. That being said, Linux is not like Windows. With Linux, the OS will fill up memory (RAM) with whatever it can, in this case applications, even if you're not using them. HOWEVER, it will only dedicate the CPU to whatever you're actually using, so whatever is in memory and isn't being used won't affect you (aside from poorly-coded apps). You can use ATK to kill an app if it's just one or two, but not everything.
If you set ATK to auto-kill everything or if you hit Kill Everything, you'll have a ton of apps restarting at the same time, slowing down your phone for a while and eating battery.

Product F(RED) said:
It's bad if you set it to Auto-Kill. The reason is because from 2.2 onward, if you kill (not Force Close) and app, it'll just restart itself. That being said, Linux is not like Windows. With Linux, the OS will fill up memory (RAM) with whatever it can, in this case applications, even if you're not using them. HOWEVER, it will only dedicate the CPU to whatever you're actually using, so whatever is in memory and isn't being used won't affect you (aside from poorly-coded apps). You can use ATK to kill an app if it's just one or two, but not everything.
If you set ATK to auto-kill everything or if you hit Kill Everything, you'll have a ton of apps restarting at the same time, slowing down your phone for a while and eating battery.
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alright ill stay away from it thanks!

That about sums it up. The only time an app should be killed is if a bug causes it to hang or slow down severely. Otherwise, let the Android system handle things itself.

In my experience it's nice to have for when you need to kill off a specific game or resource intensive app that seems to be slowing things down.

Product F(RED) said:
It's bad if you set it to Auto-Kill. The reason is because from 2.2 onward, if you kill (not Force Close) and app, it'll just restart itself. That being said, Linux is not like Windows. With Linux, the OS will fill up memory (RAM) with whatever it can, in this case applications, even if you're not using them. HOWEVER, it will only dedicate the CPU to whatever you're actually using, so whatever is in memory and isn't being used won't affect you (aside from poorly-coded apps). You can use ATK to kill an app if it's just one or two, but not everything.
If you set ATK to auto-kill everything or if you hit Kill Everything, you'll have a ton of apps restarting at the same time, slowing down your phone for a while and eating battery.
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so would you recommended going into the app itself and picking the apps i want to be closed? or could i also use the widget to close all of them?

I would only recommend going into the app itself, long-pressing on the app you want to kill, and then pressing kill. Closing all of them just forces a large number of apps to restart. I really only use it to kill certain apps that are more difficult to close.

[Request] Process manager/Task manager

I am wondering if we have a task manager/process explorer app for Nexus 4? Currently I am using AirDroid v2 that includes a task manager, but I am looking for one with more options.
I travel a lot & would like to kill as much unwanted applications running in the background as possible to conserve battery.

There is no more need to use task killer to manage android systems any more. You will be doing more harm than good, in fact there is no good in killing tssks manually.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

Point noted.
But when I use Airdroid task manager, I see a process when the corresponding app is not running the background.
To mention a few; Cut the rope free, stocks & Hill climb racing.
Few system process like picasa uploader, chrome etc.
As you said andoird may optimize most of them, but I would like some control when running thin on battery.

mohan_168 said:
I am wondering if we have a task manager/process explorer app for Nexus 4? Currently I am using AirDroid v2 that includes a task manager, but I am looking for one with more options.
I travel a lot & would like to kill as much unwanted applications running in the background as possible to conserve battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
use greenify https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify&hl=en to hibernate any persisting apps/processes (except system). apps relaunch when you open them.

Killing apps and then having to reload them actually uses more battery than them being dormant in the background and already loaded when called upon. The problem is when you have misbehaving apps that stay in the foreground eating up cpu, instead of going dormant into the background. And this does happen. I use an app called Watchdog that alerts me when this happens. It allows you to kill the app when this happens. It also allows you to whitelist and blacklist apps and processes.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

main phone setting, apps, running.. default task/process manager. in the top right will be an option to show cached process as well.

simms22 said:
main phone setting, apps, running.. default task/process manager. in the top right will be an option to show cached process as well.
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We all know that is there. The op mentioned wanting more options, mainly monitoring and kill options.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

mohan_168 said:
I am wondering if we have a task manager/process explorer app for Nexus 4? Currently I am using AirDroid v2 that includes a task manager, but I am looking for one with more options.
I travel a lot & would like to kill as much unwanted applications running in the background as possible to conserve battery.
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Click to collapse
fernandezhjr said:
We all know that is there. The op mentioned wanting more options, mainly monitoring and kill options.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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fast reboot(free), but the paid version i like better https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greatbytes.fastreboot&hl=en

rayiskon, I will try greenify & let you know how that helps.
fernandezhjr, I agree restarting app is not an optimal way, but I require to squeeze battery to atleast make phone calls when I am away from charging options.
simms22, fast reboot looks promising. I'll try the free one for now and take it from there.

It's kind of already been said, but I want to clarify as much as possible.
Apps running dormant in the background (using RAM) use no more power than if it weren't running. This is because all of the memory you have is being refreshed all the time, the controller has no idea whether there is actually data there, it still refreshes the entire space of memory.
Apps running "dormant" but using CPU do use more power than if it weren't running. I assume OP is wanting some sort of monitoring app that shows which apps are using CPU, in which case is fine. If OP is wanting to kill all apps that he isn't using at the time to conserve battery, then he would actually be doing the opposite of what he wants, as it requires to CPU to spin back up to restart it later. Again, the difference here is RAM vs CPU, one doesn't use battery (or rather, uses the same amount of battery, no matter how much of it is being utilized), and one can use more or less battery depending on how much it's used.

Johmama said:
It's kind of already been said, but I want to clarify as much as possible.
Apps running dormant in the background (using RAM) use no more power than if it weren't running. This is because all of the memory you have is being refreshed all the time, the controller has no idea whether there is actually data there, it still refreshes the entire space of memory.
Apps running "dormant" but using CPU do use more power than if it weren't running. I assume OP is wanting some sort of monitoring app that shows which apps are using CPU, in which case is fine. If OP is wanting to kill all apps that he isn't using at the time to conserve battery, then he would actually be doing the opposite of what he wants, as it requires to CPU to spin back up to restart it later. Again, the difference here is RAM vs CPU, one doesn't use battery (or rather, uses the same amount of battery, no matter how much of it is being utilized), and one can use more or less battery depending on how much it's used.
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Thanks for the detailed explanation. I understand killing process, shutting down cached process or apps & later restarting them is only going to fire up the CPU usage which completely defeats the purpose of conserving battery.
Though not a daily ask, at times I am stuck in situation where a phone call or SMS is all I need to keep me going.